Gerald D'Cunha

  “Children see magic, because they look for it.” Christopher Moore   I had been to a friend’s place, last evening. As I got off the lift, I was pleasantly surprised to see one of my ex-students (she had also attended our summer programme on Personality Development) with her little girl on a three-wheeled cycle. “Hello sweetheart,” I greeted the little child, “can I sit on your cycle?” The little girl looked at her mother! I did not know, that my ex-student lived on the same floor as my friend did. After chatting with her for a few minutes, I proceeded towards my friend’s flat, which was on one end of the floor, while my ex-student and her little girl on cycle proceeded towards their flat, which was on the other end of the floor. It was a large floor with at least eight to ten flats on it… As I was waiting for someone to open the door from inside my friend’s flat, I overheard a conversation between my ex-student and her little girl on cycle… “Mummy, who was that ...

“No man, without trials and temptations, can attain a true understanding of  the Holy Scriptures.”  John Bunyan M y mom, 85, lives with my eldest brother’s family. We are five brothers. One is in Kuwait, two (including me) are in Mumbai and two are in our hometown, Mangalore (Mangaluru). In these difficult times, we four brothers feel so relieved and reassured – if those are the words, I can use to describe our feelings – that mom is in safe hands! Here in Mumbai, the very night when our PM announced the 21-day lockdown, both my wife and I packed our bags and moved to my in-laws’ place, with whom our 27-year-old son had been already living. My father-in-law is 85 and mother-in-law is nearing 80. The health has not been good and, now, the maids had stopped coming. Thus, we had to take a prompt decision, that very night… which proved to be the right one. On the surface, these things seem very ordinary. But, when...

"Things you may take for granted, other people   are praying for.” Marian Rico Lee “T he stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.” This Biblical line has been, often, used to convey, how the things, that we had once taken for granted, have, later, become so important in our lives. Just as they have become, today! Yesterday, while I was talking to my friend, Joe, who lives in my hometown, Mangalore, he reminded me of this line, and, he gave me this familiar account: “There is a grocery store near our house, which has been there since the days of my great grandfather. A local Musulman had started this store, and it had been called after him - “Maplyachi Angad’ (in Konkani) … The Musulman’s store. Some years ago, the area around this shop became a hot property… Swanky malls and super markets mushroomed all around it, and, suddenly, the store of the great-grandfather era looked irreverent and was found rejected by the new...

“When you make peace with yourself, You make peace with the world.” -       Maha Ghosananda T raditionally, the term ‘Jobless’ has been used to convey these two meanings: 1. One has no employment – no source of earning 2. One has job – a source of earning – yet, he cannot go to the workplace… There is a third meaning, which, most of us have wanted to convey by saying, “He is jobless.” … Yes, “Koi kaam dhandha nahin hai”… “Bekaar baita hai”… Today, the meaning of all these three versions of ‘Joblessness’ – becomes so clyster clear as the roads, skies and seas, even the deserts of Dubai, are! We are all ‘jobless’ today, in one sense or the other…   But, let’s not put the blame and curse on poor Corona … The curse has already befallen us! So, we, the so-far-so-good folks – the jobless ones - are on our cellphones, laptops, computers or tabs and doing a million things, without kno...

E very day is a ‘Thanksgiving Day'! I have never waited for a Sunday mass to thank God. A Sunday or a Monday… it makes no difference, if I do not have the Lord in my heart… And, the only prayer that invites the Lord home – my heart – is my profound gratitude! The beautiful story of Shabari, from the Ramayana, is one of the finest examples. If our hearts are pure and filled with gratitude, if we keep showing our trust and devotion to the Lord, then, no matter what the world thinks about our status in the society – how it judges us and treats us – the Lord will surely surprise us by coming to our homes… eat with us… stay with us! Shabari was an outcast woman in the eyes of the self-proclaimed ‘pure souls’. But, she kept collecting the sweet berries from the jungle and offered to Lord Ram in cups made of leaves, with the unflagging hope, that He would come to her humble hut and accept them… And, Lord Ram did. Not only did He surprise this frai...

“T here’s no point in trying to convince someone who’s already made up his mind. ” This is a wise and old piece of advice.   Now, we all make up our minds. In fact, we are encouraged to do so... Aren’t we? But, what if someone is too adamant, too inflexible, too egoistic? And, what if this person keeps citing the ‘Laws’… Keeps accusing everyone’s actions as ‘illegal’? Yes, this is the person, who, the Wise say, we should not try to convince. They have made up their minds… and, even if the whole world falls apart around them, they won’t move an inch! But, invariably, they bring upon them the inevitable self-destruction… History has enough evidence to show us this truth! T he men who put Jesus Christ to death were such hardcore pharisees … They cited laws, and they always tried to trap Jesus through this medium… When Jesus went around teaching and healing people on the Sabbath Day (The Jews, as per the Moses’ Law, rested and p...

“It is far easier to love an infallible god than fallible human beings.” ―  Marty Rubin O n my nephew, Macklin’s (my elder brother’s son) wedding day, I was the toastmaster. I did two goof-ups that day… Let me take you through the first goof-up... Macklin, after completing his B.E., had decided to be a sailor like his father. The difference was this: while his father had become a sailor after his ITI as a technician in the engine department, Macklin wanted to climb the ladder from the Fourth Engineer up to the Chief Engineer. I did not know about what people did on ships… The engine and the deck, both, appeared same to me till that mid-noon while I was raising the toast… I recalled my brother Franklin’s obsession with machines when he was a young boy… He was simply crazy about mechanical things. Dad’s old Favre-leuba watch and our antique alarm-watch… My brother alone knows how many times he had ripped them open...